urge parliamentary scrutiny of the state within a state of the Khakis, especially the dreaded spy agency (DGFI). The interference of the Khakis into state politics will once again jeopardize institutionalization of elective democracy, good governance and secularism. The rogues fear social justice activists, critics, politicians and journalists too - Joy Manush!

Saturday, December 21, 2013

Passions of Bangladesh by Islamists in Pakistan

NAJAM SETHI

Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the PMLN’s interior
minister, has passionately proclaimed his “Muslim identity” above his
“Pakistani nationality”. Speaking on the floor of the National Assembly last
week, he described himself as “first a Musalmaan and then a patriotic
Pakistani” in denouncing the execution of Qader Molla, the Sec-Gen of the
Bangladesh Jamaat i Islami by the government of Hasina Wajed for war crimes
against Bangladesh during
the “war of liberation from Pakistan
in 1971”. Chaudhry Nisar explained how he had tried desperately to convince his
cabinet colleagues to officially convey their Muslim passions to the government
of BD but failed to evoke a response, the Pakistani Foreign Office shrugging
off the episode as an “internal matter” of BD. He also tried to whip up frenzy
in parliament through the good oratory skills of his former PMLN colleagues and
current opposition leaders Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and Javed Hashmi for a
condemnatory resolution against the execution of Qader Molla but failed, thanks
largely to resistance from the PPP and MQM who watered it down significantly.

On the face of it, many Pakistanis might
unthinkingly agree with Chaudhry Nisar in staking their Muslim identity over
and above their Pakistani one in any given situation. In fact, recent polls
show that a significant majority of Pakistan’s youth are inclined to
say “I am a Muslim” when asked the simple question “who are you?” rather than
“I am a Pakistani”? This contrasts sharply with Muslims elsewhere in the world
who are more likely to stress their nationality over their religion, eg, Arabs,
Saudis, Malaysians, Chinese, Palestinians, Kuwaitis, Emiratees, Iranians, etc. Indeed,
even Muslims in India
would answer “Indian” rather than “Muslim”. Why are we Pakistanis different
from our fellow Muslims in other nation states? What are the consequences for
our state and society of this difference in perceptions and notions of identity?

The issue can be traced back to partition
when the leaders of the Pakistan movement, including Mohammad Ali Jinnah, deliberately
mixed up propagandistic notions of Islam, the religion and culture, “being in
danger” with the fact of “economic and political discrimination” of Muslims in
the body politic of India led by the predominantly Hindu-Congress. Unfortunately,
however, after the creation of Pakistan,
the political leaders of the new nation state continued to clutch at “Islamic
ideology” rather than secular democracy for purposes of legitimacy and conjured
up “Hindu India” as the perennial external enemy seeking to undo Pakistan. In
this dubious quest for a religious nationhood, they trampled over the right of
Pakistanis to assert their state identity (Pakistani), followed by their ethic
and regional sub-identities. This mass identity falsehood eventually led to the
democratic reassertion of Bengali rights and the impetus behind the creation of
Bangladesh in 1971, followed by eruptions of similar regional-ethnic sentiments
in Balochistan and Pashtunistan in 1973.

The second consequence of trying to forge a
singular Muslim identity in Pakistan
in opposition to the nation-state identities of other Muslim and non-Muslim
countries is the legitimization of large-scale violence by state and non-state
actors. Singular religious and belief identities are likely to be more
passionately held, defended and extended than plural ones that are more
conciliatory and tolerant. This explains the rise of separatist ethnic
movements no less than eruptions of Islamic terrorism and sectarianism.

The third consequence of Muslimising our
primary identity is eternally pitting our nation-state of Pakistan against the
nation-state of India by portraying it in our national consciousness as Hindu-India,
despite the fact that Indians identify themselves as Indians and not Hindus or
Muslims when dealing with citizens of other nation states who do likewise. This
distortion of the legitimizing narrative of a new nation-state has, in turn, led
to the creation of a national security state based on the supremacy of the
military as the predominant political force in Pakistan.

Under the circumstances, Chaudhry Nisar Ali
Khan’s Muslims passions are totally misplaced and even dangerous in
articulating Pakistan’s
interests. Indeed, the fact that he is ideologically on the same page as the
two spokesmen of the military, Sheikh Rashid and Javed Hashmi, is cause for
serious concern. He is dipping into the lowest common denominator of religious
passions at a moment in history when his leader Nawaz Sharif is trying to keep
religion out of the politics of conflict-resolution between Pakistan and India;
out of the equation between the forces of democracy and the forces of
Praetorianism; and out of reckoning between the forces of religious terrorism
and the writ of the nation-state.

To be sure, the ruling party of Bangladesh is
whipping up nationalist passions for rank opportunist political reasons. But
these are internal matters for Bangladesh.
On the other hand, it is morally and politically wrong for Chaudhry Nisar Ali
Khan and his ideological ilk to be labour the Muslim passions of 1971 in which Pakistan was
the clear transgressor, and create a rift within and outside the country.